My Science project!

[DrBob]

So the experiment is done, and the results tallied.

Based on flavor I rated the cigars from best to worst as: 1, 4, 2, 3. For burn and general construction: 1, 2, 4, 3. I also received ratings from the other two smokers and have tabulated the results below:

......Dr. Bob......John......Kris
Best:.....1...........2.........1
Next:.....2...........4.........2
Thrd:.....4...........1.........4
Wrst:.....3...........3.........3

John is the longest time smoker and is in his late fifties. Generally keeps his cigars about 70%, but when he lived in the south said often they were much higher. Kris is the second longest cigar smoker and is in his mid thirties. Kris likes to keep his cigars at 72% using a bovedas in a small wineador because he thinks that that humidity brings out more surface oils. I like to keep mine at 69% and also use a wineador with bovedas. 69% i came at through trial and error about a year ago, and I am late forties and have been smoking cigars for just under 2 years.

After we rated them my lovely assistant (AKA wife) revealed the humidities of each cigar to us. Prior to that point we had blindly smoked and rated them.

Humidities:

Cigar 1: 62%
Cigar 2: 69%
Cigar 3: 72%
Cigar 4: 65%

General observations: Overall we all liked cigar 3 (72%) the least. Two of us ranked cigar 1 (62%) the best and all of us had cigar 2 (69%) in our top two. Overall cigar 2 slightly edges out cigar 1 but its close in the numbers.

John most liked cigars in the range of 65-69% so slightly drier than he has been smoking them. Both Kris and I jumped from 62% to 69% for our top 2 cigars, but if based purely in flavor my personal ranking went 62%, 65%. 69%, 72%. Kris noted that all the cigars were fairly close in his ranking, though cigar 3, at his preferred humidity was clearly the least favorite...

So to summarize: We all preferred the flavor of drier cigars than we expected. I am somewhat concerned that storing cigars long term at 62% might deplete them of essential oils, but am considering keeping my main stock (>500 cigars) at the current 69%, and getting a secondary up on deck humidor to try some cigars at 65% and 62%.

Stay tuned for cigar experiment #2!